Icarus
by daphnebeauty
Summary: He had flown too near the sun. His wax had melted, his wings had failed him, and he had fallen. But Icarus was not failing as he fell, just coming to the end of his triumph.
1. Chapter 1

**Icarus**

A story by daphnebeauty

* * *

><p><span>Chapter One:<span>

_She didn't taste like she should._

_She didn't fit in his arms like Kate would._

He could almost, almost make himself believe that the dream curled into his side was Kate. That the long, brown waves of hair that flowed over his bare chest belonged to the woman he had let slip through his fingers, and not to a mere figment of his imagination.

If he could go back, he would. He did it every damn night in his dreams. He went back to the nights of silly laughter and the mornings of slow and sleepy love-making. He went back to the day it rained so hard she was drenched through and through and he had kissed her under a maple tree. He went back to the night she had named the freckle on his left knuckle. He went back to the feeling of her wet body pressed against his chest in a bath. He went back to the feel of her laugh on his chest.

He went back every night since she had left.

Eight months, fourteen days, and a few gut-wrenching hours since she had left and never come back. He hadn't followed. He only went back in his dreams. The dreams that lie torturously in between bliss and nightmares and woke him with an ache in his chest that never lessened with time. She left such a hole in him.

He couldn't quite pin the moment things had gone wrong. Somewhere between the laughs and the smiles, there had been something much darker. And she had faded. Faded right before his eyes and he hadn't even noticed until she had walked away and disappeared completely.

There should have been signs. There should have been fights and breaking glass and tears and slaps and fire and thunder and four horsemen. But there was nothing. She had one day simply slipped though his fingers like fine sand.

He had begged her to stay. He had knelt on the floor and held her by the stomach and begged like a man losing his life. Because in essence, he was. She was his everything. And to lose her would be to lose life itself. His tears had soaked her shirt and his hands had stretched it out as he gripped and pulled to make her stay. Her tears had fallen from above like rain.

She had used her strong and gentle hands to pry him away. She had used her long and lovely fingers to dry his tears. She had bent at the waist and kissed his head and then she had walked away.

"_I can't."_

Today was a special day. He would officially have been without her for longer than he had been with her. He had spent a portion of that time searching for a replacement. A placeholder. A warm body. But no one was enough and he always went home alone. The vodka couldn't blur his vision enough to make their eyes green. It couldn't numb his fingers enough to ignore the lack of scars. It didn't wipe his memories enough to make him forget.

It wasn't enough. Nothing ever would be again.

He quietly dressed himself in the dim morning light. There would be no more sleeping and he didn't want to lie in bed contemplating exactly how empty the other half of it felt. How empty he felt. Castle snuck out of the apartment and made his way to the streets of New York.

It was early enough that the traffic was still entirely too calm. He hadn't been awake and about at this hour since…well, since Kate's warm and low voice had called him to the crime scene of the last case they had worked together. There was something about the blue-grey light of the morning that made him feel completely and utterly alone. More alone than he had felt in the entire eight months he'd been without her.

Maybe it was this loneliness. Maybe it was the chill in the air. Maybe it was the innate quality of man to strive for routine. Whatever it was, Castle switched the direction he had been walking on the streets and headed towards a long-unvisited destination. Smelling his goal long before he reached its doors, Castle let the memories of countless mornings of the past wash over him.

Pushing on the brass bar of the glass door, Castle entered the bakery. He hadn't been here since Kate had left. This had once been where he got her coffee and pastry every morning and the thought of returning here again had turned his stomach. He couldn't even drink coffee anymore and had switched to tea long ago. The smell of a rich brew only reminded him of the taste of her tongue after she drank a cup.

Today, the cheery jingle of the bells on the door greeted him as if no time at all had passed since his last visit.

"Richard!" an exuberant voice called across the room. "Ben! Ben, get out here! Richard is back!"

Castle couldn't help the small smile that quirked his lip. Angela Dunning and her husband ran the bakery and he had formed a friendship with them over the years.

"How are you Angela? It's been a while."

"A while! Richard Castle you haven't been by in ages. Did you know my Maggie is pregnant? About to burst, she is!"

Castle's eyes widened. Apparently he had missed some things.

"I had no clue. Tell her congrats for me, will ya?"

"Tell her yourself. She'll be in tomorrow. You are coming back for good, right?"

Castle looked down at the pastry display for a short moment, trying to hide the guilt in his eyes. He didn't think he'd be coming back here. It smelled too much like a happier time.

"Don't think so, Angie."

"What's this I hear about Richard Castle being back?" Ben came bumbling out of the back room, wiping his hands on an incredibly dirty apron.

"Hey Ben."

"So it's true, then. You decided to grace us with your presence once again? Had enough Starbucks?"

"Ah, don't be like that, Ben. Starbucks means nothing to me! I was thinking of you the whole time."

Ben waved a dismissing hand at him. "You and your flattery. Not gonna talk your way outta this one. Where have you been?"

Castle scratched his cheek and rubbed his neck, buying himself a bit of time to find a way to answer the question. He couldn't think of a response that he liked enough so he avoided it altogether. "I hear Maggie is finally giving you guys a grandkid."

"Yep. Should have a little boy bouncing around here soon. Gonna give out free pastries the day he decides to get here."

"A boy, huh?"

Angie interrupted the exchange by nudging her husband with an elbow. She had stopped what was sure to be a long and endless proud papa speech.

"Ben, save it for another time. Look at the circles under the boy's eyes. He's obviously here for some coffee. You don't look good Richard."

"And you look more stunning than ever."

She blushed a deep shade of red and let out a loud bark of laughter.

"Get him some coffee quick, Ben! He's obviously gone mad." Turning back to Castle she leaned over the glass display case. "Since you're here again…can we assume this means Katie dear is back in the picture?"

The tug somewhere between his stomach and his heart was a little more acute than he could handle at the time and it must have showed on his face.

"Ah…I see. We were hoping things might change. She comes here sometimes, you know."

Castle immediately looked around the bakery, as if he might see his Kate hiding behind a newspaper at one of the small tables. He felt a warmth over his hand and looked down to see Angela's hand over it.

"She's not here today, dear. She usually comes in on the weekends or certain Mondays."

"Right." Castle nodded. He didn't even have a clue what he would have said to her even if she had been sitting at one of those tables with her power heels on and a shirt buttoned one button too high.

Ben slid his piping hot coffee over the counter and nodded his head towards the man in such obvious pain.

"On the house, son. Maybe it'll get you to come back more often."

"Maybe. Just not on weekends or certain Mondays." He allowed himself a self-deprecating smile that left all three of them at a loss for words. He backed away from the counter with a quick downward tilt of his chin and a slight wave with his free hand.

Turning and looking down at the coffee cup in his hand, he walked with care to make sure not to spill a drop over the lid. Reaching out for the door and pushing it open, he turned his head at the last minute to say his farewells.

"Bye guys. Thanks for the—"

He ran straight into a customer who had been entering the glass doors. His coffee smashed straight into their chest spilling dark brown, steaming hot liquid all down both of their fronts.

"Shit!" she yelled in pain.

Castle knew that voice. His stomach dropped to somewhere around his shoes and his heart seemed to disappear entirely. Looking for the face he already knew was buried under a curtain of dark brown hair, he took two, three, four steps backwards and dropped his almost empty cup altogether. Whatever remained of the drink sloshed out onto the floor as the cup rolled on the tile.

This could not be happening.

This could not be happening.

She still hadn't looked up from wiping the liquid off her shirt, but he knew it was her. Those hands. Those arms. Those legs. That hair. Everything. Everything. He couldn't breathe.

* * *

><p>COVER ART BY MJSOFTER!<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

No amount of patting or fanning her scalded skin eased the stinging pain. She clenched her jaw and held back a slew of expletives as she bent to the ground to retrieve the phone she had dropped. Maybe if she hadn't been so engrossed in reading that damn news article on her phone, she would have watched where she was going. Yet another reason to hate Osama Bin Laden.

Pocketing the phone, she looked down at her irrevocably stained white blouse. It was almost translucent from the wetness and it clung to her front in a pale effort to retain its function as "clothing". Plucking at the material with the fingers of each hand, she drew it away from her skin and looked up towards the counter.

"Angela, do you by any chance have…"

No.

This could not be happening.

This could not be fucking happening.

He was standing there. Right in the middle of the bakery with a coffee cup at his feet and a look of absolute horror on his face. Every single semblance of anything that could be considered rational thought left her brain. There was the dull hum of the lights above. There was the distant throbbing pain on her chest. And then there was him.

She was half overcome with the urge to run away as fast as she could and half tempted to kiss that pained look on his face away. It was a terrifying combination that ultimately culminated in unbelievable nausea and a distinct dizziness.

She swayed where she stood and the edges of her vision spiraled into the most colorful black she'd ever seen. He hadn't blinked since she'd looked up and she couldn't tear her eyes away from his. They were as blue as ever, but so much sadder than she remembered.

She was breathing his name before she could even process the act.

"Rick…"

She took a step forward and he immediately took a step back. _That's right. I left him. The last time I saw him he was crumpled on the floor begging me to stay. I don't get to say his name like that anymore._

She felt a hand at her shoulder and it drew her gaze from the man who had haunted her every single day and night for eight months. Angela was holding her husband's apron in her hand and pushing it towards Kate. She grabbed it with a mumbled thanks and threw it quickly over her chest to hide it from view.

Not that Rick hadn't seen every single part of her already.

It was amazing how something so unbearably hot could turn cold in a matter of moments. Her clinging shirt was now cold enough that it was giving her chills. She shivered uncomfortably and tried to pull it away from her skin again.

"Katie, dear. What are you doing in today?" Angela spoke with a tentative awkwardness. Kate hadn't realized how utterly silent the bakery had been until Angela's soft voice broke the hush.

Shaking her head a little she looked towards the woman. "Umm…I…I had the day off and thought I would just…grab a cup. Check up on Maggie. I didn't—I didn't know…"

She trailed off painfully and looked over again at Rick who seemed to be frozen in place with that same look of unblinking shock on his face.

"I'm sorry," she continued to him. "I didn't know you were here."

He worked his jaw up and down a few times before he started to speak. Nothing but a hoarse release was emitted at first, but he cleared his throat and tried again.

"It's not—you're not—I don't normally come here. You couldn't have known." He looked away from her eyes and fixated somewhere near the small puddle of coffee on the floor. He bent over and picked up the empty cup. "Throw me a towel, Ben? I seemed to have spilled."

Ben wasn't even attempting to hide his absorption in the moment. Mouth gaping and eyes dodging between the two unbelievably awkward customers in front of him, he slung a towel over the counter towards Richard.

Rick started to dry up his mess.

"Dear, don't you dare touch that. Ben! How could you let him clean that up?" Angela pecked at Ben.

"He asked!"

"Give me that!" She shooed Castle away from the towel and wiped at it herself.

Looking like a man completely out of place, Castle shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at the surreal woman before him.

"I should go."

He started forwarded reluctantly. She was in his path and he was coming closer and closer to her with each step. Her breath stopped and her heart sped up. He turned his body to pass by her and had one hand on the door before some unknown force gripped Kate's consciousness and took control of her body.

"Wait!" She reached out with a hand and clutched at his forearm. "At least let me get you another coffee."

He was staring at her hand on his arm with an unreadable expression on his face. She withdrew it slowly and almost apologetically but kept her eyes locked on his. It was a different experience than it had been moments before, from across the room. Here, she could see the navy freckles in his cobalt irises. She could see the purplish circles under his eyes that she knew were mirrored on her own and she could see a few new lines around the edges.

He was still heartbreakingly handsome. For what felt like the millionth time in eight months, she felt the unforgiving stab of regret deep in her gut.

When he made no move in either direction she added a light plea. "Please."

He looked down and sighed.

"Yeah. Okay."

He turned back away from the door and walked to the counter again. She followed close behind.

"Can we get another coffee and a nonfat butterscotch latte with extra foam and a shot of espresso?"

Angela smiled sympathetically. "Sure thing."

Kate's arms were covered in goosebumps and she was only half convinced it was caused by her now freezing shirt.

"You didn't forget." She said it quietly, only half speaking to him. Mostly it was just a statement.

"It's hard to forget when there is such an empty space when you are gone." He turned away from her and walked to the small table in the very back corner.

She had no idea what he meant by that. And yet…it completely summed up her own feelings towards him. He was absolutely unforgettable and his absence made that abundantly clear. After a pause, she followed him back to the table and sat tentatively across from him, fiddling with the front of the apron and avoiding eye contact.

She shivered again, this time entirely from the frigid cotton plastered against her chest. His brow furrowed at her and seemed to slowly take in the situation, dissecting it like only Richard Castle could.

He stood abruptly and turned towards the back hallway.

"Come here." It was a command. Gentle, but a command nonetheless. She obeyed.

He brought her into the dim incandescent lighting of the back hall and stared at her. She shifted between her feet and tried harder than ever to keep an impatient question from tumbling out of her lips. He released another heavy sigh and she wondered how often he did that nowadays.

Then he shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to her. "Hold this." Another command.

"Rick, what exactly are…" Her voice trailed off as he reached for the buttons of his shirt and started to undo them. She was once again struck by the simultaneous urges to both run and kiss him. What on earth was he doing undressing in the back hall of the Dunning's bakery?

"Rick, what are you doing?" This time she was a bit louder and her voice was more commanding.

"You are cold. I'm giving you my shirt."

He was halfway done with his buttons now and his navy blue undershirt was peaking out of the deep vee he had created.

"You don't need to do that. I'm fine. I'll just go home and change in a bit."

"It's my fault you're wet. And you live twenty minutes away and it's cold outside." He finished the last of his buttons, shrugged off the long-sleeved navy blue shirt and put it in her hands. "Just take it, Kate."

He turned around and left her in the back hall. She stared at his retreating form until he rounded the corner and then looked down at the shirt in her hands. His coat had born the brunt of the coffee spill, and the crisp blue shirt was blissfully dry. And warm. She looped the apron back over her head and made quick work of taking off her own blouse.

She pulled her arms through Rick's shirt and began to button it up, fingers trembling. His scent was absolutely overwhelming. The warmth he had left behind in the threads of the fabric felt like the most heartbreaking caress. It was a mere ember of the heat she knew the man himself could produce.

Choking back a sob, she debated simply ripping the shirt off entirely. This was the worst form of torture she could ever imagine. She felt like a puppy having her nose rubbed in her own mess.

Bringing the collar up to her nose she inhaled the scent of old books, dark wood, and faint spices. A few tears fell down her cheeks and she caught them with her hand before they could stain the shirt.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped.

"Are you okay, dear?"

Trying to regain her composure and hide any evidence of her moment of weakness, Kate nodded at Angela.

"I'm fine. Really, I am. Just…you know. It's a lot."

"I know. Want me to kick him out of here?"

Kate smiled and sniffled lightly, a contradiction in every manner. "No, no. I should go out and…face it."

"That's our brave Katie. Always slaying dragons."

"He's not a dragon."

"No?"

"No. He's just…my biggest regret."


	3. Chapter 3

00

Chapter Three:

He sat and twirled the fat, red mug in front of him letting the almost unbearable heat from its sides warm his hands. _What in the hell was he doing? _He needed to leave. He needed to forget the coffee, forget the woman, and just run as fast as he could away from whatever was happening.

He still hadn't quite managed to recover from the last time she had walked out of his life. There was no way he'd remain standing this time. He was still too broken. He had done a half-assed job of gluing his parts back together, mostly for appearance's sake to keep his mother and Alexis from continuing those awful, pitying looks. But he still felt like his legs were attached with duct tape, and his eyes blinked only when he yanked the pulley, and his heart was one beat away from shattering once again against the superglue he'd tried to stick it with.

She looked different.

Her hair was a bit darker and a bit longer. Her lips were redder, or so it seemed to him. She looked like she had been carved out of marble by one of the masters. Inconceivably flawless. Hard. Untouchable. She was even more beautiful than he remembered, but for some reason, it almost seemed a cruel beauty. She had been soft before, like a painting of pastels and neutrals. But now he saw her for what she was: a woman who held the tremendous power to completely and utterly break a man.

The bell above the door jingled quietly as some stranger walked in and ordered some combination of pastry and caffeine. The bell was tauntingly cheerful, continuing to ring even after the door had clearly shut.

_She clung to his arm and her laughter flooded his ears. She was warm and soft against his side and he pulled her just a little bit closer. The bell above the door heralded their arrival and its tinkling harmony was soon joined by the happy greetings of the bakery owners._

"_Katie and Richard! We wondered if you'd be in today! I made a special batch of apple turnovers just for you!"_

"_Ben,you old softy! You didn't have to do that…But since you did, I'll take two." Kate smiled as she spoke to the old man and her face was a light with a hypnotic threw him a wink and leaned over the counter. "Now tell me…what are the chances Angie will let me steal you away? We can just live some where in the country and eat apple turnovers every day!"_

_Angie spoke with fervor in reply, "Take him! Please! I'll take that fine looking man you've been dragging around as a trade."_

_Kate looked over at Rick appraisingly and he attempted to pose for her better assessment._

_Smiling slightly and shaking her head, Kate sighed. "No can do, Angie. I think I'll just have to keep this one. He's grown on me."_

"_Ah, the words every man longs to hear." Rick wrapped his arms around his beautiful woman from behind and began to place dramatic kisses against the ticklish sides of her neck, swaying their bodies back and forth._

"_Rick! Stop it!" she commanded half-heartedly through a wholesome laugh._

"_Never!"_

Their laughter was so strong in his memory that its absence surprised him when he was jolted back to reality by the bells ringing again, announcing the exit of the strange customer. He sighed heavily and took a deep swallow of the still too hot coffee, letting the scalding pain remind him that the happy memories were long gone.

He heard her heels long before he saw her round the corner of the back hall. Bracing himself for her arrival, he shifted in his chair to sit up a bit straighter. Turning to look up at her as she pulled her chair way from the table, his heart broke. He hadn't really thought past the idea of simply getting her warmer. He didn't give her his shirt out of some desperate plea to win her back, it had simply been misplaced chivalry. A need to do something when he felt so helpless otherwise.

But he hadn't thought it through.

She was wearing his shirt and swimming in it. Her scent was probably rubbing off on its collar at that very moment. His mind flashed to countless other times when she had worn one of his shirts, and the memories were a stabbing pain in his heart. What had he been thinking? She was so irresistibly beautiful and now he had no choice but to resist her.

He hated her. He really did.

But he _loved_ her.

He loved the way she fiddled with the too-long sleeves of his shirt. Hated the way her eyes couldn't seem to find a place to rest. Loved the way her hair fell in her face. Hated the way her finger tapped on the table. Loved the way she bit her lip unconsciously. Hated that she had left him. Loved that she had once loved him.

He hated that truthfully he loved every goddamn thing about her and it made this morning that much more painful.

"Better?" he asked because he couldn't let the silence rule over them any longer.

"Yeah. Thanks." She glanced up into his eyes briefly and he was taken aback by how purely green they looked. Usually they were warmly tinted with some honeyed shade of brown, but today it was only a glassy green. He found the reason in the whites of her eyes, which were slightly bloodshot. She'd been crying. That's what had taken her so long to emerge.

It made him feel a little better. At least this wasn't easy on her either.

She handed him his coat and nodded towards him. "Put it on. You're getting cold."

He looked down at his bare arms and noticed the goosebumps there. He didn't really feel that cold. Or maybe he did and all the other emotions were simply taking precedence.

"It's okay. You take it. I'm fine."

She sighed and let the jacket rest on the table. A few beats of silence passed before she spoke up.

"How have you been?"

He almost laughed. _How had he been? Wrecked. Heartbroken. Confused. Bitter. Alone. Inconsolable. Dark. Pain. Thunder. Zombie. Lost. How the hell had she thought he'd been?_

"I've been good. You?"

She nodded until the words could catch up. "Fine. Yeah, I've been fine."

They both nodded numbly and out of sync.

"You writing anything new?"

"Nothing publishable."

She took a sip of her coffee and avoided his eyes. The awkwardness of the entire situation was almost unbearable. He silently cursed Ben and Angie for giving them mugs instead of to-go cups. It was probably some misplaced effort at playing cupid. There was no fixing this one. They weren't going to just talk it out. She had left. He hadn't followed. End of story.

He looked up once again to find her staring intently at him with an unreadable expression on her face. It looked something akin to guilt, if guilt had the ability to be simultaneously full of longing. Maybe it was regret. He couldn't tell. He could feel his heart starting to beat again and his eyes momentarily moistened. He wasn't crying, but his traitorous eyes seemed to be leaking a physical response to her painful presence.

"I'm so sorry, Rick." She breathed the statement so quietly he barely heard her. Except for the fact that her words were all he could hear and seemed to echo around in his head.

"No. Don't. You don't have to apologize."

"No. Please I want to—"

"Kate, please stop. I get it. I flew too close to the sun."

Her brow furrowed in that adorably confused way and he found himself feeling slightly sick at the sight. He expounded, if only to make that expression leave her face.

"I flew too close to the sun. My wax melted. My wings failed. I fell. You were always too good to be true, Kate. I should have known I wasn't your exception. I should have known. "

"No, that's not what—"

"Really, Kate. It's okay. I'd take the fall a hundred times if it means I also flew. People always forget that Icarus also flew. He's famous for the fall, but I don't think he was failing as he fell. I think he was merely coming to the end of his triumph. You were my triumph, Kate."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four:

Tears fell unapologetically from her eyes, forming glistening wet tracks on her cheeks. She looked even more like marble now that she shone like polished stone.

"Please don't cry," she whispered. He raised an eyebrow in confusion, and then slowly brought a hand to his face. He found wetness there and realized tears had managed to sneak their way from behind his eyes and spill out for the world to see. He would have been embarrassed if there had been room for that particular emotion.

Wiping at his cheeks with the backs of his hands, he tried to offer a smile and a laugh. It came out mixed with a short sob.

"I'm sorry, Kate."

She reached across the table and grabbed his hand on impulse, seeing her action only in retrospect. They both stared at their joined hands and seemed to freeze. She was tingling and he was burning. He slowly pulled his away under the guise of wiping more tears. He couldn't let her touch him. It felt too painfully right. He didn't want to have it and have to let it go again.

She looked down and took a deep pained breath.

"Rick, I want to—"

"I said it's okay, Kate. I'm—"

"Will you let me finish!" She was frustrated and for a second, the flash in her eye reminded him of the infinite power and strength that ran like a current beneath her surface. His eyes widened and he conceded. Whatever she was about to say, he was sure he didn't want to hear.

"It was just…we were just…too much. You had all these ideas and thoughts and dreams and—and—and expectations. I couldn't possibly have lived up to everything, Rick. You wanted too much."

"All I wanted was you."

Closing her eyes at his words she let a few more tears fall as she gathered strength. She felt like she was cracking and breaking all over again. Grief spilling out of her for everyone to see.

"I wasn't enough. I just wanted to be a part of your life. Not the whole damn thing. You were going to figure out sooner or later that I wasn't enough. I just did it for you."

A fire was raging inside Castle. He hadn't felt this angry with anybody since he could remember.

"Oh, well that you very much for the kind forethought!" he spat at her. "I don't know where you think you can get off telling me that what you did was for me! _For _me? You left me without so much as a warning. You took everything away. Everything! Don't even think you can turn yourself into some kind of martyr here. You broke me and you did one hell of a job. Don't pretend it was for me. _This _couldn't have been for me."

He stood, shoving his chair back violently. Pointing an angry finger in her direction he let every emotion that he felt rise to the surface so that she could see exactly what she had done.

"You have no idea what you threw away. No idea. I wake up every morning and am reminded of what you did. I know. I _know_ what we lost. You just walked away from what people spend their whole fucking lives searching for."

He turned and stormed out of the bakery, ripping the bell off the door as he went and throwing it skidding across the floor to the corner.

Kate sat frozen and wide-eyed, staring at the bell on the floor. More than a few moments passed and she couldn't move a single muscle. Not the ones to stand, not the ones to breathe, not even the tiny ones in her eyes to help her look away from that bell.

"For god's sake, go!" Angela yelled at her from behind the counter. Kate looked up and into the woman's eyes. Ben stood beside her with his arms crossed.

"If you don't go now, Katie, you'll lose him forever."

"But…he'd never…"

"Yes he will. Go fix it."

Kate stood, almost on autopilot and started to fish around in her bag for some cash.

"Will you forget the money? Get out of here and don't come back until he's yours again!"

She grabbed his jacket and ran as fast as her long legs would carry her out the door. She turned in the direction he had gone and looked through the streets that had gathered pedestrians in slowly rising numbers. In all of them, none were he.

She swiveled her head frantically, catching no sight of his broad shoulders and chestnut hair. Bile rose in her throat accompanied by acute panic as she realized she was again losing the man she had never really wanted to let go in the first place. Already her chance was flying by, with a taunting wave and a near fatal shot to the heart.

"No!" She screamed in a whisper.

The roiling clouds in the grey sky answered her call with a rumble that sounded all too much like evil laughter. Kate had never been one for fatalism, but the events of the day had to mean something, right?

She had taken today off instead of tomorrow at the last minute because of Ryan's plans with Jenny. She had woken up at a god-awful time on her day off because her neighbors had been doing early construction on their kitchen. She had chosen to come to the Dunning's bakery instead of the Starbucks down the street because she had been craving an apple turnover. She had looked down at her phone to read that damn article at the exact minute she walked through the glass doors.

It had to mean something, right? How could the universe lead her to him only to rip him away once again? Was it just to reopen all of her self-inflicted wounds? Make sure that she was truly feeling as shitty as she should?

Where in the hell had he disappeared to? She hadn't been _that_ delayed in the bakery. He could only have gone so far. She picked a direction and ran. If the universe really was running things, she'd just have to trust it to take her to him. She passed by a side alley as she ran full ahead, and barely spared it a glance.

In that glance, she caught the absolutely unmistakable form of Richard Castle.

It could hardly have been called an alley. It was just a tiny dead end surrounded by tall brick walls where a few nearby businesses kept their dumpsters. She could smell the sickly sweet smell of the garbage, but it was faint. Mostly she could smell the pavement and the oncoming rain, thick and heady with ozone.

He was sitting against the wall with his knees pulled up bent and his arms resting in a circle around them. His head fell in the loop they created and she could see from where she stood that he was breathing heavily.

She walked as quietly as she could up to him and crouched at his side. He had either heard her approach or was simply too spent to care about the new presence, but when she laid a hand on his arm, he didn't even acknowledge it.

The clouds rumbled again in the distance as if frustrated that they were expected to retain all this rain. The downpour would be upon them soon, but Kate really couldn't bring herself to care at the moment. Nothing existed outside this alley.

"Rick. Rick, please look at me." She pulled gently at his arm and tried to urge his head up.

"Please go, Kate. I can't do this." His voice was heavy with exhaustion.

She slid her hand from his arm and into the protective fortress he had formed with his arms and knees. Putting her cold hand to the side of his warm face she drew it up until he raised his chin high enough to meet her eyes. His were bloodshot, but not wet. She stroked his face and let the very tips of her fingers explore the small crinkles around his eyes. She was probably crying again. She didn't know.

He was so beautiful. She thought about him nearly every day. Thought about what she had given up. Thought about how she never should have. Her biggest regret. Walking away from him had been her biggest mistake and her biggest regret.

"Rick, I know."

His brow furrowed in question.

"I know what I gave up. I have to live with it every single day knowing it was all my fault. Knowing that I had it perfect for the briefest most wonderful amount of time, and I gave it all up because I was scared. Because I don't deserve you and I didn't want you to figure it out."

It had started to rain and she could no longer tell if the wetness on his face was tears or drops of the rain. It didn't really matter, did it?

"Rick, please. Please forgive me." She was running her hands over his face now, as if trying to memorize each and every facet. Her voice could barely be heard over the increasing volume of the rain on the metal dumpsters. She had been speaking too quietly and apparently the goddamn universe wanted her to speak up.

"Please." A little bit louder.

"It's not that easy, Kate. It can't be that easy."

"It can be. It can. Please don't make my mistake. Don't walk away from us. I don't think I can bear it again."

He closed his eyes and shook his head. She couldn't tell if he was disagreeing with something she had said or was arguing with himself over some internal debate. Taking the coward's way out, she moved swiftly while his eyes were still closed. She pressed her lips first to his right cheekbone and then to his left. Then she kissed under his eye and then to the scar above it. She kissed anything that she could reach except for his own lips, punctuating each press of her mouth with a desperate "Please."

He had once begged for her to stay.

Now it was her turn.

"You don't have to be Icarus, Rick. It doesn't have to be the end. We could just—"

She was cut off when his hands found her face, framing it completely in his large palms. His eyes were still squeezed shut, as if he were afraid to look at her. He pulled her in to him, his lips touching hers in the most terrible, wonderful kiss.

He released a sob of relief and pain. His lips had pulled back and his face was scrunched up, holding in what had to be a deluge of indefinable emotions. He pressed another kiss to her lips as if he just couldn't help himself. As if she was as irresistible and dangerous as heroin. Each one felt like the last one they would ever have.

"Please, Rick. Take me back."

He shook his head and his forehead rubbed against hers as he pressed yet another kiss against her lips, tasting her gently with his tongue, only for a brief moment.

"No."

"Rick…"

"It hurts, Kate."

This time she kissed him, pulling his lip between hers and kissing him exactly the way she knew he loved. Sweetly and like she would never stop. He tasted just like the rain. She tried to kiss the flavor right off of him, tugging at him with her lips and lightly licking his own. She was trying to kiss away the hurt.

His hands were in her wet hair and she could feel them trembling against her, tensing and releasing against her scalp.

"This can't be real." He whispered against her, his eyes still closed.

"Open your eyes." Maybe if he could see her. Maybe then he'd believe.

He shook his head once again against her forehead. "I can't. If I open them, you'll be gone and I'll wake up and it'll just be another dream."

"I won't go, Rick. Please open your eyes."

His lashes fluttered a few times against his cheeks like wet feathers before his stormy blue eyes finally fixed on hers. She saw an ocean of pain in their surfaces, but there was more than just a glimmer of hope. She could see it blossoming in him with every second their eyes remained connected. Maybe he finally found the proof he needed somewhere in her own eyes.

He ran his thumb over her lips and his fingers stroked against her brow and down her cheek. "You're my sun, Kate." He sighed and his eyes ran over her face with a tender and tentative caress of their own. "But I'm afraid to fly too close again."

She looked down. She had broken them for good it seemed. He would never be able to trust her again and he wasn't going to give her the chance she didn't deserve. Nodding and starting to pull away from the heavenly hell that was his hold, she was stopped by his hand at the back of her neck and the sound of his cracking voice.

"Did you love me?"

His eyes were so full of fear and vulnerability and trepidation. People always told her that her eyes were expressive, but she was nothing compared to the man in front of her. He looked like the question had simply slipped from him. Like he wanted nothing but to take it back. He didn't really want to hear her answer.

She hated herself for making him question what they had had.

"I never stopped, Rick."

She stood and looked down at the broken man before her. At her words he had closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the bricks of the wall. The rain fell onto his face and washed away his tears like she hadn't been able to.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five:

She tasted just like she should.

Just like he remembered but could never recall on command.

Each drop that hit his face in a barrage of rain felt cold on his skin. No matter how hard he tried to grow accustomed to the patter, each droplet was a small slap of surprise that made him twitch in anticipation. It wasn't soothing. It wasn't washing away his pain.

His makeshift heart was ripping in two. He hadn't been able to stop himself from kissing her, tasting her, feeling her. He had wanted to do anything _but _that. Scream at her, push her away, drown her in his tears. It wasn't fair that he still loved her as much as he did. It wasn't fair that she had kissed her way around his face with warm presses of her soft lips. It had felt so different than the rain did.

It wasn't fair that she got to be the one to stand and walk away. Again. It wasn't fair that he couldn't say _Yes, yes! I'll take you back!_ It wasn't fair that he couldn't grab her and kiss her again. It wasn't fair that he was crumpled on the ground by a dumpster in an alley looking like the broken man he was, while she was as gloriously beautiful as ever.

He lolled his head sideways on the brick wall and opened his eyes. She was standing before him, her hair wet and curling in on itself. Her mascara was trickling down her cheeks and the shirt she had borrowed from him to be dry and warm was drenched with the cold rain. She should have looked dreadful, but Rick couldn't bring himself to think of her as anything other than magnificent. Their eyes met and held contact.

The silence spoke the words that neither of them wanted to hear.

Their wings were irrevocably damaged. They had plummeted into the sea and were slaves to its whims. Dashed by wave after wave and pulled apart by unfeeling currents, Kate and Rick were through with their flight and sentenced to drown.

What happened next happened so quickly that Rick didn't have time to process its finality. Kate turned abruptly and ran back out onto the streets of New York. Before he even had time to stand, she was in a cab and driving away.

It wasn't fair.

The gaping hole in the pit of his stomach rolled and pulled. She was gone.

She was gone.

She was gone.

He'd been allowed one brief, providential, tortuous last meeting with her before she was gone again from his life. Was he supposed to feel some sense of closure? Knowing she was hurting too? Knowing that she'd come after him and begged him to come back? Should he feel a sense of satisfaction that he had been strong enough to resist her siren pleas?

He didn't feel satisfied. He didn't feel closure. All he knew was he could taste the ghost of her on his lips and she was out there somewhere in a taxicab among a sea of taxicabs wearing his shirt and driving away from him.

No one had ever hurt him as much as she had. No one had ever come so close to extricating his soul from his body. She and she alone could make his heart cease to beat, his lungs fail to inspire, and his mind to lose itself entirely.

Unbidden, his literary mind begged to answer Nietzsche's question "_What if someday or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more'...Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.'"_

No one had filled him like she had. No one had given him purpose as she had. She and she alone could make his heart beat, his lungs inspire, and his mind to lose itself entirely.

If the demon came into his loneliest of loneliness and offered him the chance to relive it all, the laughs, the touches, the smiles, the heartbreak, the pain, and the death of love, he'd say yes in a heartbeat.

He'd give anything to relive the feel of her skin on his. He'd sell his soul to re-experience the first time she sang just for him in bed at 3AM, softly like a dense fog. He'd love to see her roll her eyes at him when he told her how beautiful she looked on his pillow. How she'd had to leave after that first night and go into work looking all business, but had kissed him sweetly before leaving.

He'd read the book again word for word, even though he already knew the ending.

But if that was how he truly felt…why the hell was he standing here in the rain, while she drove further and further away, taking his second chance with her? He'd been given a second chance to have her. How was this different from the demon's offer? This time, he didn't know the ending. This time they weren't starting with a clean, fresh, glass-half-full perspective. This time they both had something to prove and knew exactly what they could lose.

It didn't matter. Well, that wasn't true. It _did_, but there were other things that mattered more than his fear. His feet were running in a glorious moment of action. His hand decisively shot out and summoned the nearest yellow cab. He knew where she had gone. He knew where he had to go. He rattled off the familiar but rusty address and then sat in the backseat as rigid as one could imagine when a man so full of direction is forced to remain still.

The windows quickly fogged with the humidity he created with his heat in the cab. It was stifling compared to the chilled and plentiful air outside. His mind was racing. Flashing between images of their past and the slightly hazier ones of what could be.

For the infinite twenty minutes of the cab ride, he was finally free of pain. His heart hadn't felt this bruise-free since she had left. He knew the pain was far from over. He knew that there would be far more strife and struggles ahead of them. But at least he was going after her. At least this time he wasn't crumpled on the ground somewhere, hating her and himself and the universe.

When he finally found himself outside her apartment building, he walked with purpose through the front doors, waving casually at her doorman and hoping he wouldn't be stopped. He wasn't.

As the elevator climbed, so did his heart rate.

As he walked down her hallway, the sounds around him focused into the auditory version of tunnel vision. Everything around him faded out and he could hear only the dull roar of his blood rushing in his ears.

As he raised his fist to knock on her door, he briefly considered running away back into the alley.

The sound of his fist on hard wood echoed down the hall and his chest shook with every manic thrash of his poor heart.

And then she answered.

Still in his soaked blue shirt and long brown hair and red lips and huge green eyes.

His heart quit fighting him and he pushed through the door without words. Taking her all the way into his arms, he kissed her.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six:

He devoured her.

His kiss wasn't tender and reverent and gentle like it usually was. It was deep and long and bruising. His teeth had found her lower lip and were scraping their way along it, compressing the blood to fill it and make it throb with delicious pain. He released her from his teeth's grasp and soothed the pulsating lip with a flick of his tongue.

He didn't seem to have any control whatsoever over his actions. He was acting like he wanted to kiss and touch her everywhere but was running out of time on some unknown countdown clock. After he withdrew from her lips, his mouth was sucking fervently at her neck, right below her ear. It was her spot and he knew it. Her head fell back and she moaned low and deep.

His hands found the small of her back and the nape of her neck and he bent her backwards, forming her body to his will. Her hair tumbled over his hands and if she'd been able to open her eyes, her world would have been upside down. It felt like it was anyway.

He kissed his way down her throat and then set his focus right in the hollow where her clavicles met. She had his ears in her hands, mindlessly grasping them to keep him where he was and to prevent herself from falling to the floor. Her knees were quickly failing her and she knew he wouldn't be able to fully support her on his own if he was going to continue his work on her neck.

"Rick…" It had been meant to warn him of her immanent collapse, but came out more as a vague, breathy plea. For him to stop. For him to continue. For him to hold her up. For him to just let her fall.

His reply was to hum into her neck and then bite gently on her sensitive muscle of her shoulder. His hand tightened around her back and he filled his fist with the soaking navy shirt, pulling it tight against her front. The shirt was wet and cold but she was so hot that it almost felt good on her skin. Still, she wanted nothing more than to just rip it off.

She wasn't going to question whatever had caused Rick to come after her and knock on her door mere minutes after she had arrived. She had him here, strong and solid and unbelievably real and that was what mattered. She wasn't going to waste time.

The hand that had been supporting her neck retreated and then coursed over her shoulder to pull the fabric of the shirt as far to the side as the collar would allow. He covered the newly exposed flesh with his lips.

Her knees gave out.

He faltered but didn't drop her.

Hauling her up against his body roughly, he spun them and pressed her up against the wall beside the door. Her leg kicked out to keep her balance and made contact with the coat rack, sending it crashing to the ground.

Neither of them heard it. She was now securely pinned between the wall and his sold body and had his ear in her teeth as he went back to his furious assault on her neck. He started to move his head down again, to the deep vee of the shirt, but that wasn't where she wanted him. She missed the taste of his mouth and using her vice grip on his ear, she tried to tug him back up.

He grunted and resisted. She tugged again, her incisors biting into his skin in what had to be a painful amount of pressure. He still refused and so she writhed against him, trying to get her face even with his. She couldn't get to his lips.

"Rick, kiss me."

"I am."

"No. _Kiss_ me. I want to taste you." She held the sides of his face and brought her lips to him, but he pulled away before she could make contact. He was avoiding her eyes and in the split second she realized it, her arousal transformed into fear. Something wasn't right. He _always_ wanted to kiss her.

She pushed insistently at his shoulder, forcing an almost unbearable foot of space between their heaving chests. It was as hard as keeping two opposing magnets apart and she had to press a hand to his chest to keep herself from leaning in again and letting him kiss wherever the hell he wanted. Even if it wasn't her lips.

But she knew that something was terribly wrong. She should have suspected it the moment she answered the door and he swooped past her threshold. If she was going to fix this—fix _them_—then she had to start with him. With what she had broken eight months ago.

"Why did you come here?"

She needed his answer, but she feared it.

"I want you." His eyes were intricate knots of ten different kinds of desperation and the way they were staring into her own made her body react like a marionette. She swayed towards him, completely under his control. She blinked and the contact was broken and she was once again able to think about his reply.

_What exactly did that mean? Did he want her in the 'immediate' sense? Or did he want her 'forever'? Was he only here for closure? Did it matter either way? Would she really say no to him even if it _was _only for one last time together? _She knew she wouldn't. One more day spent wrapped in his arms was better than none. At least this time she would know the last time was the _last_ time.

She looked down and away from his hypnotic eyes.

"Are you…Did you want…" She took a breath, annoyed at herself and looked into his eyes. Forcing confidence and some semblance of control into her voice, she started over. "Are you taking me back?"

It was his turn to look away.

"Kate…I don't know." He shook his head and then tilted it up to the ceiling. "I want to. I really do. But I just don't know…how."

She nodded. She understood. She didn't really know how either. This was so much more complicated than the first time.

"Should we talk first?" she suggested. She didn't really want to talk. Not when he was so close and warm and his hair was hanging in his eyes from the rainstorm. She brushed her fingers along their ends and pushed the dripping tips away from his eyes. Lingering on his brow she watched as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

He settled his face into her hand and then held it with his own. Pressing a kiss to her palm he shook his head.

"I don't want to talk."

She'd do whatever he wanted.

"Okay. We don't have to."

He smiled softly and she wondered if it was the first time he had done so all day. She couldn't really remember, but it looked wonderful at the corners of his mouth. It looked like it would taste delicious.

She kissed him delicately, wanting to see what that soft smile tasted like.

They used to play a game—well, Rick used to play a game—where every time after they made love he would tell her exactly what she tasted like. It was always something different and absurdly poetic. The first night she had tasted like "forever" to him. The second time it was "victory". The third it was "summer peaches". The fourth it was "garden hose water". The list went on and on and Kate would never remember all of them, although now she wished she hadn't taken it for granted. She briefly wondered if he'd define her taste this time.

She wasn't as good at it as he was and all she could think of when she played her tongue along his lip was: _tasteslikeRick._

This kiss was more like the man she remembered. It was unhurried and tender. It was the first kiss of the day where neither was desperately clinging to sanity. They simply allowed their lips to touch and caress and feel and remember.

Her hands were still on his chest, but they were no longer pushing him away. He was cupping her face with care and his thumbs were running back and forth along her cheekbones. She had used the wet sleeve of his shirt to wipe away the rivulets of mascara on her cheeks back in the taxi. The rain had washed away the rest of her makeup and she was glad to be rid of it.

She could feel the soft movement of his lips slowly chipping away the brittle bridge that connected her to this realm. She was losing herself in him and it felt wonderful. At this time yesterday, she had been sure that never again would she feel his broad chest beneath her fingertips. Never again would she be completely engulfed in his strong arms as he held her to him. Never again would he kiss her like this.

The thought shot a frantic wave of need through her and she deepened the kiss significantly. It was still gentle, but the level of intimacy rose to an almost unbearable amount. His tongue was hot against hers as they tasted each other and reminded themselves what a kiss should always feel like.

How could she have given it up? How could she have gone eight months without it? How could he possibly be _here_, kissing her, holding her, taking her back?

She withdrew from his lips and held his face between her shaking hands. Looking him dead in the eye she allowed him to look as deep into her soul as he wanted.

She whispered, "I'm sorry."

His thumb wiped away what had to have been the hundredth tear of the day.

"It's okay."

She shook her head and tried to make him understand her apology. She needed him to know that she knew. She needed him to believe that she was truly sorry for ever giving up on them. For getting scared and not letting him help. For selling them short. For leaving and not coming back. He had to know.

"No, Rick. I'm really, really sorry. And I know it's not enough. I know that. But it's all I have. I love you, Rick. I promise I'll never—"

She was cut off by his kiss. It was short, but strong and full of emotion.

"I forgive you, Kate. I forgive you."

Her laugh was half sob. Her smile was radiant and almost felt foreign on her face as it stretched the corners of her mouth to where they hadn't been in so long. His responding smile was gorgeous and it crinkled the corners of his eyes making her heart fly.

"Now will you let me love you?"

It was more than a request for their inevitable intimacy. His eyes were asking the question she knew he feared would break them. Would she be able to let him love her this time?

She nodded her head until the words could catch up.

"Yes."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:

He couldn't take his eyes off her smile. He didn't want to. It filled him completely. He couldn't possibly begin to explain all the ways that flipped the little switch in his brain.

It was the way she bit her lower lip sometimes after he kissed her. She had absolutely no idea she did it and he had no plans on ever telling her. He didn't want it to become a conscious action. It was like a little secret between him and her lip.

It was the way he still had no idea what color her eyes were because sometimes they were green and sometimes they were brown and sometimes they were grey. He still couldn't match them to any specific mood or lighting. They seemed to just switch randomly on their own accord, to make sure no one ever forgot that she was a mystery.

So when she smiled at him, he just had to smile back. His heart just couldn't hold all the happy and the reprieve and the delight and the _finally,_ so it spilled out in a smile.

Yes, he was scared.

Yes, he still hurt.

But oh god, yes did he want nothing more than to have their love again. That love that he swore could light the darkest nights and move the mountains and prove that heaven was real because nothing earthly could be this damn _perfect_.

And so he asked her to let him love her.

Now and forever.

To just let him in and succumb to everything he knew they were.

And she said yes. He could see in the depths of those mystifying eyes that she understood the levels of his question and he couldn't help the flare of white hot _thank__god_ that rose through his core like some sort chemical flame.

He knew that's all they needed to fix this—to fix them. As horrifically cliché as it sounded, all they needed was to be able to love each other wholly. To understand exactly how much a part they were of each other and to respect that connection, that completion. The healing would come in time.

And so this time when he kissed her, it wasn't out of desperation or addiction or apology or forgiveness. He kissed her with hope and with confidence and with undiluted love. This time she held his face in her wonderful hands with the long delicate fingers and he wrapped his arms around her so that his own hands almost looped back around to her front. She was still smiling and he could feel it in the kiss. There was absolutely nothing in the world more magnificent than kissing Kate Beckett with a smile on her lips.

The rain drove at the windows, frustrated at its inability to penetrate the glass and enter the warmth of the room with the two lovers. Lightning flashed in the heavy sky and was punctuated by a thunderous boom that shook the walls and rattled the dishes in the cupboard, but not the focus of Kate and Rick. The clouds shrouded the sun to such a degree that the day itself seemed timeless. It could have been twilight or noon and the world would have looked the same. But time didn't matter in this apartment anyway.

Kate pulled away from the kiss and bit down on her swollen lip, still holding that smile. She took him in with a few flicks of her eyes and then laughed, the sound of bells ringing gloriously in his ears.

"We look ridiculous. Or at least you do and I'm assuming I look similar." She swept an indicative arm up and down in front of her body like a disapproving Vanna White, lips pursed and eyebrows raised.

He caught her hand mid-flight and brought it to his lips.

"You look beautiful."

She narrowed her eyes.

"But a little bit…wet?" he added as an amendment. He smiled at her bedraggled appearance. Her hair had obtained a layer of frizz in a sort of halo and the ends were curling into unruly waves and swirls. He reached his hand out and ran a few fingers through it. The rain had made it soft.

She stepped closer to him again and looked down at his chest, curtaining her eyes from him with those unbelievably long eyelashes. How did she manage to look so pretty?

"How about we start getting dry, then?"

She plucked his shirt right at the collar and then looked up at him from beneath her lashes. His breath left him in a gush at what he saw in her eyes. Lust, desire, love, impatience, excitement, trepidation, adoration. All of it unbridled and on display for him to take in. He couldn't do much of anything but nod.

She mockingly nodded slowly back at him with a knowing smile. Sliding her hands down his chest, she found the edge of his undershirt and ran her hands underneath it. Her fingertips brushed along the super sensitive skin that disappeared into the waist of his jeans and the muscles there danced and jumped in response. It tickled in the most delicious way. He bit his lip to suppress the squeak he knew she was looking for.

She leaned in and kissed him softly while her hands slid up his front, taking the cotton with them. He pulled back and let her finish stripping the wet shirt off. It fell to the floor with a slap. Grinning, he went back in for a kiss that had her stumbling backwards and into the wall again.

"Can we get out of this hallway at least?" she mumbled through the kiss.

"Lead the way," he replied into her lips, but made absolutely no movement to make that easy for her. She seemed to become distracted by the muscles of his chest anyway. Kneading them with her fingertips with poorly restrained passion, she let her fingers press and slide all the way down to the waistband of his jeans.

Getting a good grip with both hands she tugged him forward until he fell towards her. He braced his hands on the wall beside her head so that he wouldn't completely crush her, but found his elbows were giving out as she started to glide her hands over his stomach and hips. Dipping her head she pressed wet, open-mouthed kisses along his shoulder and then his chest. Her mouth was startlingly hot against his damp and chilled skin and he pressed a hand to the back of her head and threaded his fingers through her hair.

She paid extra attention to the left side of his chest, right above his heart, peppering it instead with softer, sweeter brushes of her lips, before flattening her tongue against his nipple briefly. The groan that tore through him was low and wild and he hardly believed that a mere man could make a sound like that. Especially when that man still had his pants on.

Grabbing both of her upper arms, he pushed her back further into the wall and slid a jean-clad thigh between her legs. He started to unbutton the navy shirt that sagged wetly against her skin, slowly revealing her pale white skin, button by button. He had the damn thing halfway done before he lost patience and slipped his hands inside the gap to find her breasts.

He had almost forgotten how perfectly she fit in his hands. Almost, but not quite. He could never truly forget the weight of her against his palms. Her bra was in his way, but there was nothing he could do unless he got that shirt off. Bringing his mouth to her ear, he nibbled at the lobe and then took it into his mouth to lave it with his tongue until he felt her breaths coming shorter and shorter.

"Kate, finish up your buttons. My hands are busy." He gave her a little squeeze of proof before running his thumbs over her through the fabric of her wet bra. The sensation must have been pleasing because she arched into his hand and let her head fall back to the wall.

"Castle…"

He smiled into her neck at his last name. He always liked it when she let it slip. But then he felt her grind herself into his thigh and he forgot what his name was entirely.

"Shirt, Kate."

She released a frustrated growl and ripped the last few buttons off.

"That better?" Her voice was husky and low and as the buttons hit the floor and scattered, so did his rational thought.

"That was Armani."

She placed one of her warm hands on his chest and pushed him away from her, smirking. She walked around him, her slightly wobbly knees giving her away where her steady voice did not.

"Pick your battles, Rick."

She walked away, her body moving with a lithe, sensuous grace that had him mesmerized. She let the shirt slide slowly down her shoulders and then drop wetly to the floor with a muffled thump. Still not looking back, she reached with one hand and unclasped her bra, letting it dangle for a moment from her fingers before it too fell to the ground.

He didn't try and fight the pull of her magic. He wouldn't have been able to stop his legs in any case as he followed the breadcrumbs she was leaving him. As if sensing his inevitable draw to her, she turned her head over her shoulder and she teased him with a smile. Her mouth—her soft, lovely mouth—curled upwards in a triumphant smirk and the rich red of her lips had his pace quickening.

She was halfway to her bedroom when he caught up to her and yanked her to him by her wrist. He didn't waste a second before he had slid his hands under her smooth thighs and lifted her against him. She wrapped her long legs around him and he pressed her into the hallway wall, taking a deep, long kiss with her.

They were quickly losing control and he didn't give a damn. It had been eight months and he finally had the love of his life wrapped around him again. He pushed her harder into the wall so that he could free his hands and use them to stroke her wonderfully exposed breasts.

She was perfect. Stunning. Divine. The rosy peaks that welcomed his thumbs were the most incredible hue and they were set against the whitest, softest skin he'd ever touched. He loved how responsive they were to his every touch. He pressed his mouth to one and she gasped at the feel of him there. Clutching his head to her chest she squeezed her thighs even tighter against him, bringing him closer

The sheer weight of his wet jeans had tugged them fairly low on his hips and his arousal was uncomfortably imprisoned by the material. He let his teeth scrape over her, half out of frustration and half because he knew he'd get a whimper out of her.

He was not disappointed.

"Rick…so close…"

He withdrew his head in confusion.

"Already?"

Her eyes were dilated and heavy with lust as she took in his questioning expression. She smiled and nipped at his lip.

"I meant close to the bedroom. We almost made it."

He chuckled and spun her away from the wall, relocating his hands to the very acceptable new location of her bottom. Giving it a playful squeeze, he started to finish their journey to the bedroom.

"Honestly, Rick." She shook her head and released a rare giggle before giving his neck an uncountable amount of light, feathery kisses. "It's been eight months, not eight years. You're going to have to work a little bit harder than that."

"Oh, trust me. I have absolutely no problems spending as much time as possible on that."

Throwing her down on the bed he watched as she bounced and laughed at him. It was almost overwhelming how drastically his life had seemed to switch gears. It shouldn't have surprised him; things had changed eight months ago in the blink of an eye. Why not now? Why not for the better?

She was crawling backwards on the bed now but he caught one of her perfect ankles and pulled her back to the edge of the bed where he leaned down and kissed her.

"I love you, you know."

"I love you, too." She kissed the corner of his mouth, before he rose back up and ran both of his hands from her shoulders, over her breasts, down her flat stomach and to the freezing cold button of her pants. Flicking it open and then drawing down the zipper, he began to pull the wet material from her legs. She slowly worked her knees up and down to aid him and the muted slushing sound the pants made against her skin filled the suddenly quiet room.

Her face had grown serious and he could feel that his had too. She was something to behold. Her hair wild and spread out on the comforter, her eyes lidded and calling to him, her lips parted and releasing small puffs of air. Her arms were positioned half-hazardly where they had fallen, each bent at the elbow with the hands slightly curled. Before he could admire her naked form and the exact angles of her wrists any longer, she moved her hands and sat up slowly, maintaining eye contact.

She found the button on his jeans and slowly pulled it through the hole before drawing the zipper down. He sucked in a breath at the light brush of her hand against the part of him that had been straining for release since he had felt the smoothness of her skin against his hands. She folded her fingers into the waistband and pushed lightly. It didn't take much for the pants to crumple to the floor along with his boxers as if they knew exactly how unwanted they were

She took him in her warm hand and hummed in pleasure at seeing him before her once again. Looking back up to his eyes, she pressed the flat of her tongue against the very tip of him. The air left him in a rush and she smiled that damn smile at him again. Grinning back at her, although with slightly crazed eyes, he leaned forward far enough to crawl over the top of her. She was lying flat again and her dangerous mouth was far away from where he knew it could leave him powerless to make this about both of them.

Tasting that creamy, delicious expanse of throat and bosom, he smiled against her skin and then continued downward. Her breaths were coming shorter and faster. If the hold her teeth had on her lip was any indication, she knew what was coming.

He placed open-mouthed kisses all the way down her stomach until he reached the line of her ridiculously practical cotton panties. He loved it when she wore cotton. He loved her in laces and silks just as much, but there was something about knowing that she wasn't trying to impress anybody that made him want her even more.

Taking the edge between his teeth, he slowly pulled them down to her thighs before he let his hands take over and divest them from her completely. She was wriggling slightly on the sheets like she did when she was excited and impatient, her hips making small circular movements. He loved it.

Placing a kiss to her inner thigh, he watched as her hands tightened on the sheets. He exhaled his warm breath over her and her hips jerked upwards. He pressed a light, small kiss against the most sensitive part of her and watched as she lost control. Her hands abandoned their grip on the sheet in exchange for handfuls of his hair.

"Rick!"

He hummed against her and placed a series of light licks and kisses against her until her breathing had become uneven and he swore he could hear her whimpering. She was getting close, and for all her talk in the hallway, it hadn't taken much.

"Up here. Come up here," she said between heavy breaths.

"Not done," came his muffled reply. He looked up at her and caught the most wondrous expression on her face. That settled it. He was coming up to her. Kissing his way back up her body, he came to rest on top of her, supported by his elbows on either side of her head.

She raised up and kissed his lips once, twice, three times. Brushing the hair from his eyes only to have it fall immediately back in place, she smiled and he brought his lips back to her one more time. Every time his tongue tasted hers, he realized that he had missed the flavor. Not just for the eight months, but for the last five minutes it had been since he'd last kissed her. He'd never stop wanting that taste to fill his mouth. It was incredible.

Her breaths had slowed slightly and his had quickened. Shifting her hips slightly, he found himself pressing against her hot, wet center and his eyes closed on their own accord.

This was the moment between the striking and the fire.

That unbelievably savorable moment where everything hung suspended between two people about to become one.

He leaned down to kiss her and felt her slender hands tighten on his back, drawing him closer. He was pressed right against her entrance and the slightest movement from either of them would have been the beginning of what they both knew would be a beautiful fall into oblivion. She tensed her thighs around him and he drew his face back to look into her eyes as he slowly pushed himself forward.

The heat was some unbearable mixture of home, fire, and forever.

A gasp escaped her lips and her eyes batted closed as he stretched her. The air rushed from his lungs in a sob of pleasure and he stilled within her once he had filled her completely. She was so tight around him, he felt like they were literally melding into one person, joined in this incredible place.

Resuming kissing her swollen lips, he began to move inside of her, slowly. Her breath washed over his cheek like the summer wind and he held her face between his hands. They were beautiful together.

"I missed you," he spoke onto her lips.

"So much," she replied, her eyes closed and her hands roaming the broad expanse of his back.

Their movements together were some inconceivable composition of a perfectly rehearsed dance and the exploration of a newfound land. He knew exactly how to move to coax those little sounds from the back of her throat. She knew just how to respond so that he was barely hanging by a thread of sanity and control. At the same time, everything felt new. The Kate and Rick that blended with each other on the bed this day were different than the two lovers who had practiced this choreography many times eight months ago.

He moved with even more reverence and she with less inhibition. They both moved with the care of two people who knew exactly what they had in their arms and were determined to never let it slip away.

She rolled them slowly over to be on top. It wasn't a move of domination, but rather to allow one more position for them to rediscover each other.

He took in the goddess that rose above him like some unreal divine being and forgot to breathe. She _was_ real. She was real and she was his. She moved over him with rolls and flows of her hips and he brought his hands to rest there and help. Her head was tilted back and her hand had crept up to play at her throat and then fall to her breast. She was spectacular. He pushed into her, intensifying the rhythm she had created.

The switched position felt like an entirely different kind of sublime torture. He was trying so hard to last as long as she needed him to, but with her in control, he was losing his.

"Kate. Kate, it's too good." His words were less than eloquent and weren't exactly what he was trying to convey, but she let her head roll forward and looked into his eyes with a smile. She understood anyway.

She brought her hands to his chest and leaned forward to take his mouth in a hot, deep kiss that threatened to burn in from the inside out in an inferno of passion and desire.

He quickly brought his hand to where they were joined and pressed his thumb to her. She gasped into his lips and stopped the kiss without withdrawing. The pace of her hips sped at the contact of his thumb and soon she was rising and falling almost without rhythm.

"Rick," she gasped his name and seemed utterly incapable of forming any other words as he watched her eyes widen in surprise as her orgasm took her.

He felt her clench exquisitely around him and finally released the tenuous grasp he had over his own control. The rush of blood to his head and the extraordinary pleasure coursing through him extinguished sound and sight but he distantly heard her cries and his own groan filling the room.

She fell against him, slick with sweat and utterly limp. He ran his hands mindlessly up and down her back soothingly before she raised her head and kissed his chin and then his lips.

"Oh my god." She smiled and let her head drop heavily back to his chest. He smiled into her hair and agreed.

"Yeah."

He could hear the patter of the cold rain against her window and wrapped his arms around her fully. She sighed into his chest and placed a few light kisses there. Something about the steady tattoo of the rain and her soft, warm breath on his chest was drawing him closer and closer to the hazy world of sleep. The full weight of her body on him was a kind of comfort that soon had his eyes closing on this dreamlike reality and moving on to dreams of an entirely different kind.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

The sun woke Rick as it filtered in through the large, arched window that spanned almost an entire wall of the bedroom. It was sunset and he let his waking eyes absorb the everyday miracle that painted the sky. The clouds had squeezed themselves dry and now lay spent on a bed of orange like wrung purple sponges. The sun watched over the city below it with the fondness of a father as it tinted the air with shades of pink and lavender.

He drew his eyes from the peaceful magnificence that had seemed to still the city and turned in the warmed sheets of the bed. Kate was sprawled on her stomach over the space next to him, her hair fanning out behind her on the white pillow. A smile graced his face as he watched his sleeping love lie.

The sun gilded her skin. Painted with the finest shade of gold, it tempted his defenseless fingers with the promise of irresistible satin. He ran one hand lightly from the nape of her neck, down the curve of her spine, and to the edge of the sheet that demurely covered the other half of her. He skated the same path back up and soon found an intoxicating pattern in the sensations under his fingertips. He watched her back move as she breathed and the gold light of the sun followed her skin, just as captivated by her as he was.

He couldn't help himself as he leaned forward and laid a gentle kiss on her shoulder. She was the one who got away, but found her way back. He promised himself right then and there that he would never let them fall apart again. Never let her love slip through his hands. He would be there for her always. He'd follow her if she left. He would never, ever let eight months go by without finding a way to get her back.

Leaning in one more time, he pressed a kiss to the beautiful beauty mark that rested under her cheek like some sort of punctuation to the flowing prose of her face. Her eyes fluttered and he repeated the kiss until they were open and she was smiling lazily at him.

"Good morning," she spoke sleepily at him.

"It's seven. That's a sunset, not a sunrise. We've still got the night ahead of us."

She nuzzled her face deeper into the feathers of the pillow and looked up at him with one eye and an angelic smile.

"Do we, now?"

"We do." He let his hand play with hers where it rested on her pillow and she closed her eyes as their fingers flirted and teased each other.

"Did you want coffee?" he asked her quietly.

"No." She rolled her face out of the pillow and turned her body over, resting her free hand in the hollow below her sternum and letting her fingers brush idly on the skin there. "Stay here."

He didn't need to be told twice.

"Okay."

Propping his head up, he stared down at her. She wore nothing and she wore it well. The hint of a devilish smile crossed his face and she twisted her mouth in objection when she caught it.

"I can't help it. You're so pretty."

That had her rolling her eyes and he took the opportunity to place some loudly smacking kisses on her neck. Drawing that wild and uncontrolled laugh from her was sufficient payment for his troubles.

"Rick! Stop it!" She pushed feebly at his chest and he knew she didn't really want him to go. So he stayed.

"Never."

His kisses changed to less comical ones and the hand at his chest stopped pushing and started mindlessly gliding. He made his way up to her lips and placed the first kiss of the evening there. Her hands had run down to his abdomen and he felt his muscles contract under her touch. Pulling away to look in her eyes he was surprised at what he found there. Her expression had changed from playful to concerned.

"Rick…you're…"

He looked down at himself trying to figure out what had caused this shift in her demeanor. Nothing jumped out at him and his forehead crinkled in puzzlement.

"What?"

"You're…"

She pushed until he was lying flat next to her and then rolled to her side. She ran her hands across his chest and down his abdomen and then back up his sides. Exploring lovingly, but almost…clinically. It clicked for him, then, what had surprised her. In the eight months that she'd been gone, his lifestyle had changed in many ways. One of which had been the complete and utter loss of appetite. The change had been gradual enough for him that he didn't really notice it on a daily basis. He'd had to get his clothes retailored, but the change was nothing too drastic. He was still a big man.

"It's not that different. I just dropped a few pounds."

"A few!"

"Well, I didn't really have much of an appetite for the better part of a year, so yeah…"

A look of understanding and guilt passed over her features. This wasn't what it was supposed to be like. He wanted her to be smiling at him again. So he dove back in and kissed her lightly.

"Don't worry. I'll get nice and big again for you soon enough."

"Not too big. You look…good, Rick."

He tilted his head back and released a rough, warm laugh. Of course she would be ogling him now that the shock had worn off. Kissing her through a smile, he nodded and promised her that he would be exactly whatever she wanted him to be.

"I didn't notice it earlier. I was a little…preoccupied."

"Rightly so." He smirked and then ran his hand along her ribs to her hip and back up again. He didn't think he could ever stop touching her in one way or another. "You look different too, you know."

Her brow wrinkled and looked down at herself like she'd be able to spot these differences that had magically appeared.

"How?"

He fingered her hair. "Your hair. It's darker. And longer."

"It's my natural color. It grew out."

"Your lips are redder."

"You're imagining it. They are exactly the same."

He kissed them slowly. "They _taste_ the same. But I'm positive they are more red."

"Sure, Rick." She rolled her eyes as if to say, _Whatever you say, Castle._

She watched as he was suddenly alight with excitement and she waited for him to let her in on what was causing those little crinkles of enthusiasm in the corners of his eyes. They were twinkling as he suddenly ducked his head down and started to kiss her stomach.

"Speaking of taste," he said between kisses, "I forgot to name your flavor today."

She bit down on her lip and contained the smile that was threatening to simply run amok on her face.

"What am I today, Rick? Spaghetti? Wildflowers? Volcano?"

He smiled into her skin and then licked the little hollow under her breastbone where she had laid her hand earlier.

"Here, you taste like white wine."

She ran a hand through his hair and smiled as he continued to kiss his way to her neck. Reaching her pulse point, he continued.

"And here, you taste like a river. The kind that's so clear you don't even know it's there until the current carries you away."

He had never given her more than one flavor at a time before. She watched as he moved down her body again and drew the sheet away from her skin and let it float slowly back down with it's captured air over her feet. Raising one of her legs in the air, he bent it and placed a kiss to the inside of her knee.

He met her eyes. "Here, you taste like eternity."

Her heart was beating faster and faster as she watched him lovingly place her leg back on the bed and draw the fresh sheet back over her. He moved over the top of her and she reveled in the feel of so much of their warm skin pressing together. His weight was the best kind of comfort and she thought it _felt_ like eternity. Infinity. Forever.

He was hovering over her lips now and she had to mentally restrain herself from reaching up and kissing him first. This was his favorite game. She'd let him play it exactly how he wanted.

He ghosted his lips across hers. Just an ephemeral whisper. She closed her eyes and let them be covered in twin nights. Soon he'd fill them with stars, she had no doubt.

When he came to her a second time, the kiss was fuller. Full of emotions, full of motions, and full of an ocean of _them_. She thought that she might be able to taste all the things he had listed earlier. And maybe a little of something else.

When he drew back they were both breathless and he spoke in a rusted, husky voice.

"And here? Here you taste like the sun. The kind that can melt a man in every way."

She reached for him again and ended the game, kissing him with everything she had in her. Like a bowstroke that out of two strings draws one voice, Kate and Rick let the immortal universe play a beautiful song out of the instrument of them.

Hours later when the sun had set completely, she rested her head on his chest and they let the darkness of the night wash over them.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Inspirations include Jack Gilbert's poem "Flying and Falling" and some Rilke._


End file.
